Truckin'

I love how we get thrown these curve balls in life and we end up doing things or meeting people or going to places that we’d never have anticipated. I see my life that way. A whole bunch of curves, and not too many straight lines. From the way I grew up, moving from one side of the world to another, repeatedly; to my varied careers in education, entertainment, counseling, activism, and even the food business.

One of those curve balls was how I got into trucking. I was a sophomore at Duke University at the time. My boyfriend, who was a few years older, had just graduated and wasn’t yet sure of what he wanted to pursue as a career. He’d been working during the summers for a local moving company, so he decided to continue full-time while he pondered his future. The company was created by a couple of Deadheads, Doug and Toni. Besides them, the company was made up of Mark, his brothers, and a few friends, so it was small and had the feel of a large family. The name of the company was Truckin’ Movers and the logo on the trucks was of the famous Grateful Dead boot on the Truckin’ album cover. In the office, incense smoke wafted in the air and shoes were stashed at the front door. Tapes of the Dead played all day.

So there I was making my way from Philosophy to Intermediate Japanese to Socialist Societies and Geology classes, while my beau mastered the art of loading and driving an 18-wheeler. He got his license first and then trained others as more trucks were added to the fleet. When he drove long distances over holidays, breaks or weekends, he’d take me along, picking me up at the house where I lived, off campus. Everyone knew he was coming, blocks before he arrived, because you could hear the sounds of breaks hissing and gears changing as he made his way through the residential streets. Doug and Toni didn’t know that I joined him, so we kept that secret.

My CB “handle” was Tokyo Rose. When we went to truck stops, we used North Carolina accents to blend in and converse with the other truckers. When we pulled into weigh stations along the freeways, we’d anticipate the universal request that would come from the officials waiting for us. “Drivahs lie-ense, restration, loag buk!” When he first started driving, he drove a smaller truck without the sleeper cabin. When he graduated to those 18-wheelers, it was like we were freeway royalty, bouncing around above everyone else in big comfortable easy chairs. When we were together, we stayed in motels, but when he was alone, he’d sleep in the sleeper cab at the truck stops, occasionally awoken by truck stop prostitutes knocking on the door to see if he might need anything.

We went to Alabama and were hit by a horrible snowstorm. I usually helped him by tracking the inventory lists of what was being moved, but that day, I helped him load the truck as well. He was solo and the weather made the work even more grueling. The shipper couldn’t have been nicer and didn’t balk about the trucker’s girlfriend helping him load. After we finished loading, we drove to a motel, took long hot baths, and buried ourselves under the blankets, our bodies aching from head to toe. Another time, we went to San Francisco where Glen, his “humper” (that’s the job title used for the person who assists the main driver/loader in the moving business), literally humped the client in her bedroom as we inventoried and unloaded her furniture on the floor below. She took us all out for pizza afterward. She had a wide smile on her face the rest of that night.

Mark and I really enjoyed our experiences on the road and loved the adventure and independence that it provided. We loved to interact with people and to see new parts of the country. We liked it so much, that we seriously pondered buying a truck and taking a year to live and work as independent owner/operators after I graduated from college. But that didn’t come to pass. Mark took his law school entrance exam that year and passed, so he stopped working for Truckin’ Movers and we moved to California where he attended law school.

I have photos from our days with Truckin’ Movers and I always enjoy looking at them. It was a total blast.

DTBF!
Johanna